Economic History
The size of the fiscal policy multiplier – and thus the impact of austerity on GDP – has been a contentious issue since the crisis started. The IMF recently revived the debate by suggesting that the multiplier is much higher than previously thought in the current policy environment. This column discusses independent empirical research that confirms the IMF’s view – the authors’ estimate of the multiplier is in the range of 1.6.
Gauging the multiplier: Lessons from history
A Short History of Financial Euphoria
IN THIS SMALL but witty and well-crafted book, Galbraith chronicles the major speculative episodes, from the seventeenth-century tulipmania to the junk-bond follies of the eighties. The book was first published in 1990 and thus the recent dotcom-bubble burst is not covered.Market History...
Adam Smith: The Morality of the Invisible Hand
Truly a moral philosopher: "The Muir Portrait" of Adam Smith by an unknown artist (Scottish National Portrait Gallery) "Das Adam Smith Problem " — that problem was put to us a century-and-a-half ago by a German economist (August Oncken, little known today except for that memorable phrase), and we are still wrestling with it. At issue is the apparent contradiction between The Wealth of Nations and The Theory of Moral Sentiments — between the political economist and the moral philosopher. This is not a case of an early and a late Smith (as with the early and late Marx).
Transcending Medieval Economics « unsettling economics
In my new book, Sex, Lies and Economics, about early economics of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, one of the constant themes is the struggle against the medieval thinking.
A Brief History of the Corporation: 1600 to 2100
Email This Post Print This Post On 8 June, a Scottish banker named Alexander Fordyce shorted the collapsing Company’s shares in the London markets.
Soros, Epstein, and Caldwell on Hayek
Last Thursday must have been Hayek Day. In the morning was the release of the rap video, “ Fight of the Century: Keynes vs. Hayek Round Two .” And then in the afternoon a distinguished panel convened in the Cato Institute’s F. A. Hayek Auditorium to discuss Hayek’s great work The Constitution of Liberty , just released in a new definitive edition by the University of Chicago Press.
Hyperinflation in Germany, 1914-1923 - Hans F. Sennholz
[This article is excerpted from the book The Age of Inflation .] The German inflation of 1914–1923 had an inconspicuous beginning, a creeping rate of one to two percent.